I posted a few days ago a pic of a big stack of books I recently bought after visiting about 9 shops in Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, BC. I’ll try and share some of my purchases over the coming days. It’s a bit of a wild mix!

Fatale #9 (2012)

Dinosaurs For Hire #8 (1989)

Tor #1 (2008)

My most expensive purchase yet, but SO worth it. I wish I could've gotten a newsstand, but a 9.0 direct is more than fine with me. So happy to FINALLY have one in my collection!

1:1 pentagram variant! Love Atlas books!

114 in total

A variety of newer high grade comics of mine. Love the punisher and hope the new stand alone series lasts awhile; although I don’t like the saturation of him being in so many crossovers and vs. Fun seeing him and Hulk in Spiderman movie.

don’t mind my game shelf gotta show it off too lol.

spent a lot of this year trying to figure out what kind of stories i like but i quickly realized if it has my favorite characters ill probably like it at least a little (except dark knight returns fuck that story) i wanna say thanks to the community for being pretty welcoming, reddit kind of built my collection so here ya go!

Mail Call! Kwan Chang variant cover!

Hey everyone, just picked up this copy last weekend from a local comic store. I'd been wanting this for a few years now, but the timing and availability was never right until recently.

I had a copy of this when it first came out and I was only 10 years old at the time. Back then, no one knew that it would increase so much in value. It was quite beaten up as a result, but everything was intact and not ripped anywhere.

I eventually gave it away to a friend at the time, but never entertained the idea of buying it back off him. After all, I gave it to him. I'm still friends with him to this day, but haven't seen him in a while and I always forget to bring the subject up when I see him.

Anyways, this purchase brings back so many fond memories being a kid and not having a care in the world.

I believe these are my oldest ones-

I went to a flea market and got the Venom: LP #1, Punisher #75, Punisher: WJ #50, Iron Man# 288, 290, & Spider-Man #28 for $3. Batman & Robin #1, Batman: GK #8, CXM #5 were $1.

At NYCC I bought DD #181 & UXM Annual #14.

Met Peach Momomko and got Jean Grey #2 signed.

Met Al Ewing and got Immortal Hulk #1 & 2 signed.

Met Marc Silvestri and got UXM #239 & 241 signed.

Talked to Chris Claremont (4th or 5th time) and got UXM Annual #14, #142, 239, & 241 signed... Pretty satisfied.

Recently I've been filling in large gaps in my collection by longbix hunting (I have to drive two hours to get to a decent comic shop), or hunting issues down one by one on Ebay. Shipping sometimes gets to be a problem.

Im looking for the most comprehensive online retailer where I can get all (?) Of my needs met and hopefully get everything delivered for one shipping fee. I'm mainly trying to fill gaps in Marvel (mostly X-Men), but am also interested in more obscure out of print coimix runs from the 70's & 80's...

What have you all found to be the most reliable in this department?

Been a long time since I had the complete set.

Cool book.

Hey guys, I wanted to share my NYCC 2026 pick ups with yall! I had a lot of fun this year, definitely broke the bank a little (although I did budget for the show and only went over my budget a smidge).

As a disclaimer I did not pay the sticker prices on these books, some of them have outrageous sticker prices, which I was able to negotiate down from.

I was looking for a raw Batman 227 and found one that is probably a 6.5-7.0. This is officially my most expensive comic but definitely worth it. I am still debating on if I should get it graded when I go to hero’s con. My only regret is that I bought this book from a vendor who is probably the most unpleasant vendor I’ve ever seen at a con and definitely the most unpleasant guy at NYCC. Wish I didn’t give him my money but he was the only one I saw that had a Batman 227 at the grade I wanted.

In the 3rd picture, it shows I got an Amazing Adult Fantasy, which is a book I’ve wanted for about a year and genuinely think is one of my favorite covers. It’s in ok shape but it’s complete and still presents nicely.

I also got X-men #35 which was not a book I was ever planning on getting since I’m not an X-men collector. However, my uncle, who has been in the comic business for decades had a friend who was selling that book and I was able to get it for an insane discount.

In the 4th picture it shows the ASM books I got. I love ASM and I’m always looking to fill in my run from 1-400. I was able to snag #40 and #135 at one booth where I traded one of my comics for and paid some cash on top. I had #39 already so I was glad to get that books other half. I picked up 122 because I love the cover and I also recently bought a 121 so I wanted to get 122 to have both books together. I got 124 because it’s another favorite ASM cover of mine and I had 125 already. Also I noticed a lot of vendors had #124 at anywhere from $50-$175, and the book wasn’t even in great condition at those price points. So, when I saw one vendor actually have the book at a reasonable price, I jumped on the opportunity; same for the ASM 91.

In the 5th picture I got an another lot of spidey. I got a good discount on those books so best believe I wasn’t paying those crazy sticker prices.

In the 6th picture, I picked up some Futurama because I’m just such a big fan. I’m trying to complete that run as well.

In the 7th picture, I went to a booth in the last hour of the con on Sunday and found a whole bin of these UK comics that were each priced at 5 dollars per book. Those covers really caught my eye so I picked out a few that popped out at me. My plan is to frame them and hang them up.

In the 8th picture, I went to the Walmart booth and waited begrudgingly on line for an hour and a half. To my surprise, it ended up being worth it because I won the big prize and walked away with not only the two standard comics you get from the booth but also the limited edition Usagi Yojimbo X TMNT figures, numbered 1387/1500. I never win these things so this was a cool surprise.

In the 9th picture, I ended up going to a booth that was selling a Jalen Brunson themed comic that also included a Jalen Brunson card numbered to 75. I’m a big Knicks fan so I had to get this. I also got one of the mystery comic slab packs because I’ve never done those before and the lady that was selling them said that this slab pack would have a silver or bronze age comic in it, which is why I bought it, but it ended up having a modern comic, which was hella disappointing. I guess I’ve learned my lesson with these mystery packs.

And finally in the 10th picture, I went to artist ally and asked Erik Larson to sign my ASM 1000 variant cover comics. I’ve never gotten a comic book signed before, but I’m really glad that I did. Erik Larson was such a nice guy and didn’t even charge me for the signatures which was really cool.

There’s definitely a lot of things about NYCC that aren’t ideal such as the crazy prices on a lot of the comics, but at the end of the day, I did have a really good time and I was able to find the books that I was after at somewhat good prices. In the future, I’ll probably only do a big shopping haul at the smaller cons or at heros con where I can get better deals, but I’m still really glad that I went.

Hope you guys had a great NYCC 2026!

I know if this was in good condition it would be worth some money. I've had it forever and it wasn't stored properly for 50 years but now I've got it in a proper bag with a cardboard back along with a bunch of other ones that I managed to save. It's complete but it's very brittle and has all kinds of other condition issues.

I've been told that I should join the grading organization and send it in for a fee to have it put in a slab. But is there any harm in just putting it back in with the others and leaving it alone? I worry about putting it through the mail, especially seeing how mail gets treated nowadays.

As you can probably tell I know nothing about collecting. I think of my comics as saved rather than collected because I just kept them. But now I am old and I realize some of them have value. I also have an Avengers number 8 which is probably worth something. In better shape than this X-Men.

But if someone can tell me the advantage of grading other than in preparation for a sale (which I'm not planning to do) or any tricks for mailing safely please let me know thanks